Happily Ever After Came Too Late
by Fyliwion
Summary: She moved on. Found a life. Found love, and found prince charming... far far too late.


**Author's Note:** I have no clue where it came from but got written a while ago. It's more adult, but perhaps it's been a hard long year. So making room for the new!

**Disclaimer: **I still didn't get a detective in my stockings *sniffs* so guess what I don't own?

* * *

It was strange to wake up in his arms, or perhaps stranger to know how right it felt.

It was different than the fancies she'd had in high school, back in the days when she'd believed so fiercely that this is how it would end up. Everyone knew that they would graduate, get married, and both have the most ideal family a person could wish for.

Except things didn't turn out like that. Shinichi came and went, and then finally disappeared altogether. Time passed. College flew by, and after a while high school seemed like a separate lifetime ago. The Kudo mansion had been deserted for years by the time she finally moved away from Beika altogether, and his name wasn't even brought up in daily conversation.

She met a nice man sometime out of college, and after a few years of dating gave in to his pleas and agreed to marry him. The wedding was nice, normal, and even if it wasn't the fairytale that she and Sonoko had thought of during high school it was lovely in its own way.

She ignored the fact it didn't seem "perfect," and had by that point grounded herself in the idea that it was life. She reminded herself of her parents who had married right after high school, and lived in their fairytale world. Try as she might by that point she knew they wouldn't get back together, even if she was sure they still loved each other.

Some things were just not meant to be.

So she found herself living in a life of domestic tranquility, and having what she supposed was a happy normal marriage.

Or at least that's how it had seemed for a few years.

And than she ran into _him_.

They'd called her down informing her the man was going to need the best lawyer he could get, and had the money to afford her. She agreed to come down to the crime scene, but asked ahead of time if there was any specific reason this was the case. She probably should have listened to her instinct, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to fully consider the option. Too many years had passed. Too much had changed.

She tried not to let herself think of the possibility.

Except she got down to the scene, and sure enough there he was looking at the body as cool and calm as ever, and chatting away with the Inspector as though nothing had passed in over ten years. He'd gotten older, but if anything he'd grown handsomer. Out of his adolescent "cuteness" and seemed more comfortable in his body.

Apparently no one informed him they'd called her either, at least she presumed as much by the way his eyes went wide when she stepped across the yellow tape.

Things had gone down hill from their.

Cold welcomes had led to later tears. A cup of coffee moved to a few drinks. Somehow things had fallen to pieces along the way, and the illusion she'd been living for almost a decade shattered around her uncontrollably.

Which was how she woke up in his hotel room, with his arms around her, and feeling far better than she had in years.

She turned over to look back over at the man next to her, and reached up to brush away a few of the strands from his face. They were still damp from sweat, but felt so unbearably soft to touch. She wondered to herself how she could have ever bore letting him go.

His eyes flickered up and for a moment she let herself go to stare at them. She didn't expect that she'd start crying somewhere in between, and buried herself into his chest. She barely heard his murmurs of reassurance that he whispered to her, nor did she realize he was shaking too as he stroked her back gently.

If someone had been asked the likelihood of Mouri Ran having an affair, at any point in her life, not even Sonoko would have believed it possible. There was a reason she had been nicknamed "Angel," and who ever heard of an angel leaving paradise to sleep with a sinner?

But it was far too late for regrets, and by that point her husband had to know something was wrong. In retrospect she doubted the name Kudo Shinichi meant anything to him, unless of course as the once brilliant detective who disappeared without a trace.

Only she couldn't think of anything else as she lay in Shinichi's arms. She didn't even care that she'd betrayed everything she'd built up for herself, down to her reputation. The thought did cross her mind that Sonoko would probably have a field day, but she wasn't even sure what to think herself.

She was also scared of the doubts she knew would rise as soon as he left her sight because she wasn't sure she could take him leaving again.

"_I love you," _she heard him whisper to her as he nipped her ear with a kiss. She closed her eyes as his hand pushed away her hair to kiss her neck, and she wondered if the cycle was going to repeat itself again. She wasn't even sure she had the energy.

Innocent.

She wondered how long since those days. At what point had her daydreams vanished, and she let herself be deluded into "safe." A "safe" life. A "safe" career. Even Shinichi had noticed with a sense of chagrin that she wore her hair just as her mother did… something else that seemed "safe."

Maybe that's why it had been so easy to simply fall into his arms. Maybe that's why it had been oh so simple after a drink or two to follow him up to his room, and initiate the first action. She realized at least that he had no delusions. She knew that he was aware of her marriage. She knew that they both realized the whole thing was wrong.

But as his hand trailed up her spine, and as she buried her face into the neck to breath in the scent that was distinctly Shinichi, she couldn't quite bring herself to care all that much.

And perhaps that made her even worse.

But if she was to fall from "paradise" then she would at least fall completely, so she thought as her lips met his again.

Too bad there was no such thing as fairytale endings, even when you were laying in prince charming's arms.


End file.
